I go to the Dufferin Mall location. True, it is cheap and the machines are available. Yet if you can barely stand going.... These are the things that drive me crazy about it.
- selling bottled water on site, with no water fountain and no facilities to recycle bottles, which just go in the garbage
- they either conduct or allow others to conduct seminars on site flogging herbalife - known to be a useless product and pyramid scheme
- staff are all about seventeen, rude, have no fitness knowledge and do very little - it appears that they have no supervision
- all of the signs and programs are promoting weight loss - hardly affirming for the women who go there. There is also dated and inaccurate healthy info posted around the place.
- things that break are left broken forever - the a/c was broken in the summer and wasn't fixed for weeks and weeks, while women were coming dangerously close to cardiac arrest - staff tried denying that it was broken, or that it had been fixed until it was so blatantly untrue that they had to admit it. Not that it matters, but just as a question of tone - the huge mirror in the room that they hold classes has been held together with duct tape for quite some time.
- the music is incredibly loud and obnoxious - on one super-infantile radio station all the time. most women wear headphones like me, so it's not for their benefit, and in fact just creates an infuriating conflict with whatever you're trying to listen to. I go toward the end of the day and there will often be this idiotic music blaring with literally two others working out wearing headphones. This has gotten to bug me so much I can barely use the gym
- staff will actually try to pressure you to leave before closing time because they have somewhere to go and want to get out. which is not cool with me, since that is the only time of the day that I can go.
Any feedback you give receives a blank stare. The problem is that even if you have no expectations of classes or staff there are actually features of the gym that will aggressively annoy you and make you not want to go.
I was a member for almost two years. It was cheap, and the location was right where I worked, so I would workout early in the morning and then walk right to work.I didn't really need a trainer since I was pretty independent with my workout regime, so I was happy paying $16 a month for doing my own thing.
Then, out of the blue, that particular location closed down without any notice, and they advised me that my membership would be terminated because I signed up there. I didn't bother to go to another Fitness One location, I just decided to pay the extra money and go to Goodlife. I'm quite content over there.
OK, so as soon as you walk in, it hits you...this is not your average goodlife gym. it's worse.
I don't say this to be rude, but...the staff can be severely unfriendly, the equipment is on the old side, and the gym is not top notch cleanliness...but what do you expect for 16 bucks a month? you get what you pay for...so please people...stop complaining...if you want fancy...theres an extreme or goodlife right around the corner, but if your one of those people like me who don't have the time to go to a gym usually but want to know i belong to one, this one is definitely an option. I don't have the time to invest 5 days a week at the gym, so why would i invest that kind of money? I like fitness one, there's a couple oflocations, nobody bothers you about buying anything...and if you call head office...speak to the owners assistant...she knows what she's talking about and always calls back. The gym is clean enough to work out in and the staff are young and mostly approachable...they are not certified personal trainers, so dont expect that. just remember the golden rule...you get what you pay for here...a no frills gym that has equipment and is warm in the winter cool in the summer...no towels, no hair dryers, no tv....no big monthly due!!!
I had been a member at fitness one, and the only thing I can say that was good was the location, the price (I paid only $10 a month), and the equipment. I always went at off hours and found it good.
I found their staff to be dismally uneducated in health and fitness. I am a self motivated person, who used to train competitively, and occasionally I would have the odd *trainer* with rocks for brains try to talk to me. I found their programs to be an insult, fashioned after weight loss fads that don't work (ie. with frequent weigh ins, and measurements that would just drive the person crazy, and probably cause them to quit.) Their programs always focused on weight loss, and did not focus on real progression once the person got beyond the weight loss (or even real progress during). Their programs were all re-inventions of a one trick pony.
I tried to humour one of the trainers one day who wanted to get me on a program. I had fallen on some ice that week and was a bit sore so I said, "Well I can't do much at your boot camp this week." She said well all we're going to do is weigh you before your workouts. I wasn't sure if it was a nice way of trying to say "I think you're fat" or just a stupid way of trying to pawn off referrals on me. I said no thanks. Motivating someone by just weighing them is not motivation at all. I found it particularly stupid because I could weigh myself if I wanted. No need for a "program" to do that. It would've been particularly useless to me since I was not trying to lose or gain weight at that time. Also weighing someone every time they workout is pointless; if you are trying to lose or gain weight you will only start to see changes gradually, not every second day (more like six weeks, and sometimes more).
I also remember when I had tried to join a few years ago (but didn't because I was insulted, and didn't think the $24 a month was worth the insult) the woman signing me up kept asking me if my goals were weight loss. Now I do not need to lose weight. I'm actually fairly small. And at that point I wanted to gain weight in muscle. This did not click with the membership co-ordinator's brain, and she kept going back to "weight loss."
I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to get serious about their health to pay a real trainer the extra money to get fit, and don't go to a rinky dink gym. These places might just annoy you.
I joined this gym back in January 08. It was cheap and convenient which is the only good points about it. They constantly cancelled classes suddenly and replaced them with nothing. The locating of classes at the Yonge and Charles location has large pillars that made for seeing/hearing the instructor very difficult. Equipment was broken for months without being fixed.
The kicker is that now Yonge and Charles is closed, without a call or letter to those who called this their "home" gym. Just a note on the door - Surprise! All other locations are inconvenient which in my opinion makes a gym useless.
Stay away! I'd pay more to have a reliable, clean and functioning gym from now on.
This gym is shady. Its cheap but expect horrible customer service. At first, or should I say until you sing up the staff is extremely friendly and after that quite useless, unprofessional, with no manners....
Head office NEVER picks up the phone or returns the calls. The gym on Peter St. has equipment that is cheap and is falling apart. workout mats are dirty. class choices are very very limited and they suck. oh yeah and the 'head office' with 905 number is actually a credit/collections company in Toledo Ohio?!!! What is up with that? HORRIBLE! but what to expect for $30...i guess
I joined the gym after my friend who had belonged for years talked me into it. I've rarely had to wait for equipment, and there is a class I want to take almost every night of the week. It's by far the cheapest gym I've ever belonged to. What I would normally pay for a class covers my monthly membership fee. One of the best deals in Toronto imho.
I have been a member at Fitness One for a few years. The membership fees are very inexpensive on the plus side, however, on the downside, the facility is over crowded and the washrooms are filthy. Since I have been there, there has been four management changes. What I find most disturbing, is that the instructors that come into the facility to teach classes, are always being jerked around by managment! A previous yoga instructor that filled the class left due to being told she couldn't schedule her holidays. I have been told of an instructor simply being told on the way out after teaching a class to simply not come back, and this after years of service. Also, a case where an excellent yoga/pilates instructor had her classes taken away, so a student/member could replace her. This is absolute nonsense. Recently, with yet another staff change over, the new trainers at my facility, are so young that other than possibly taking an in house power learning session on "how to", are not properly educated in the field and should not be giving instruction to newbies on weights, equipment, diet etc. Welcome to the world of injuries and disappointment. I for one, am leaving to find a more suitable environment in which to train.
The only person I would recommend Fitness One to is my mother-in-law! I'm SO tired of being ripped off by these people. They might claim to have low fees but if you can't get on the equipment - what's the sense in going!! I've tried several locations with the same luck (bad). Pay a little more get a membership at a real "Fitness" club.
There is a reason they call it Fitness ONE - because when I'm standing there waiting to use the equipment it seems like they only have ONE machine.
I joined the Lawrence Square club in December 06. I've been tolerating the dirty equipment and change rooms but the quality of the staff and the high turnover rate of the "trainers" has me thinking about joining elsewhere. Personally I think there are better clubs out there for the same price.
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